‘The UK is one of the most unequal countries in the developed world’ says the March 2018 Equality Trust manifesto.

Equality Trust have published their National, Local and Individual Manifestos designed to help people across the UK take action to reduce inequality.

The manifestos states:

We must protect and progress workers’ rights: strengthen trade union rights
and introduce employment rights from day one
We must explore the most effective ways of distributing wealth fairly and
efficiently: establish an independent Commission on Wealth
We must end child poverty: reinstate child poverty targets and commit to
eliminating child poverty
We must tackle our housing crisis: establish a large scale house building
programme, prioritising social housing and truly affordable housing,
built to high quality and environmentally friendly standards.
Find out more about the Equality Trust’s manifestos.

6 in 10 employers agree that a woman should have to disclose whether she is pregnant during the recruitment process.

This is according to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) who have published the results of their survey on maternity discrimination in the workplace, in February 2018.

The aim of the survey was to understand managers’ attitudes around pregnancy and maternity discrimination.

Findings from the survey include:

44% of employers agree that women should work for an organisation for at least a year before deciding to have children
40% of employers claim to have seen at least one pregnant woman in their workplace ‘take advantage’ of their pregnancy
41% employers agreed that pregnancy in the workplace puts ‘an unnecessary cost burden’ on the workplace.
EHRC have also launched a February 2018 campaign to combat these negative perceptions and end discrimination against new parents. Working Forward asks businesses to join the campaign and make the pledge.

Close the Gap is a partnership project working in Scotland on women’s participation in the labour market. The project works with employers, employees and policymakers to enable and encourage action to address the causes of women’s inequality at work.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission launched their Power to the Bump campaign in May 2016. The campaign aims to highlight young mothers’ rights at work in an effort to tackle pregnancy and maternity discrimination.